Our Knitting Goals for 2012: Update #1

Kate’s 2012 Knitting:

I’ve been focusing some time on the Must Have Cardigan, and I’m making decent progress.

I decided to be a clever-trousers, and knit both sleeves at the same time.

It’s actually a great technique for for ensuring that two pieces match completely – they will be the same length, and I can feel comfortable that the shaping rows are all worked at the same time in the same way. Â And the cabling will all be lined up.

Coming along.

The challenging bit is that it significantly reduces the portability of the project. Â I’ve got two balls of yarn attached, and it makes it bigger and more tangly. Â It no longer fits neatly into my purse.

It feels slower, too. Â I mean, of course it is, a row takes twice the time to work, since you’re working it twice. Â It’s not, in that you’re done both at the same time, but it takes longer to see visible progress.

There’s also the tiny risk that if you’re not paying full attention, you get confuzzled and work too many rows on one side, and get out of alignment. Â The green marker is there so I can keep track of which is which. Â It’s easy enough to get back on track, once you notice it, but it is disconcerting. (I blame it on last week’s episode of Fringe.)

Â Jillian’s 2012 Knitting:

I thought I had my Escargot done. I was flying along the decreases, and I noticed something strange. The hat seemed awfully long and quite the wrong shape. I reread the pattern paying attention this time.Â I was only doing half of the decreases. Knitter error! Riiiiip just a few inches, and now onward.

I do love it!

Escargot in Dream in Color

Amy’s 2012 Knitting:

I missed posting my 2012 goals, due to a missing portion of my left Â pointer finger. It’s since healed well enough to allow me to not only type [massive relief] but return to knitting! [Ukulele isn’t quite back to normal yet. Soon.]

Goals for 2012:

– Always have a new shawl design on the needles [after designing Tuscany in 2007, I haven’t really done another one since. Am rectifying.]

– One of these shawls will be knit with the handspun I’ve been making and hoarding for the last 3 years.

– Learn more about the new fibers I am discovering I can knit with after all and how they behave! [Camel, yak, alpaca.]

On the needles:

coming along nicely

Lanesplitter, of course. Holding it up to my body, it’s already long enough to reach my knees without a waistband, but it’s not even 18″ yet. And I’m 5′ 5″, so I’m not that short. I think I’ll get a 2nd opinion, and then perhaps start on the main body section. I really want this baby done.

The shawl thing is well underway, but as it’s meant for Brenda Dayne’s Welsh for Rainbow book [!], I can’t show you. I will tell you honestly that I constantly shock myself at the stupid mistakes I make in knitting. I spend a lot of time trying to find zen, making the pattern just go, resulting in forgetting essential pattern details like how many plain rows of stockinette go between the lace repeats, for example. This has resulted in much frogging. Despite the attempts of one kind knitter to help me avoid the frog by ripping down and reknitting two small patches of lace, I found another set of glitches that had me pulling everything off the needles. Reknitting lace, laddered down, is not a skill I possess, and may never. I’m okay with that.

Anyway, this shawl is now well on track, more than halfway done [properly, this time!] and will be in Brenda’s hands as soon as I can arrange it.

12 thoughts on “Our Knitting Goals for 2012: Update #1”

A lovely set of goals, I must say. Kate, one trick to prevent you from working more rows on one sleeve than on the other is to lay them side by side (like you have them in the photo) and pin the edges that are closest to each other together. You won’t turn your work until you’ve completed a row on both sleeves.

I love the two at a time method, because I have a lot better shot at the two pieces looking the same in the end! One trick I learned is to use one circular that is longer than the other. For me, it means that whenever I’m on the longer circular (which I can tell because the tip is longer too), I am on the front or first cast on side. It’s a quick easy way to know, which makes up for me easily getting distracted!

As a (learning) guitar player, I can’t imagine how I’d cope with losing part of my index finger (or as my guitar teacher calls it “finger 1”)… but almost everything I do requires me to be somewhat ambidextrous (from typing and mousing to knitting & spinning to playing the guitar to driving my car, as it’s a stick shift).

Have you tried buffalo fiber (since you’re mentioning yak, camel, and alpaca)? Yak are found around my part of the world (Bijou Basin is in Elbert, CO, which is right around the corner). I’ve seen yak on the other side of the mountains (I’m in Denver), and we have tons of alpacas & llamas around this area, too.

I’m fascinated by which animal fibers you’re finding as alternatives to wool, as well as the man-made fibers, but the animal fibers are generally more sustainable.

I’m on the first sleeve of my Must Have Cardi. I did the front shaping on my two fronts together & pinned the two fronts together in the middle so that I wouldn’t lose track of which side I was on. That helped, but I so hate knitting two @ a time, that I’m doing the sleeves solo.

Regarding working two sleeves at once: on her blog Mary Scott Huff knit two sleeves together as one piece, with steeks for sewing up the sleeves. This was a truly AH HA! moment for me, and if you haven’t seen her Queen Bee sweater in progress, go take a look.

HELP! My lane splitter skirt turned out long, as well. Can I just make the wasteband out of the extra length by folding it over, as the casing and not adding on the inner waste band?
ANY suggestions would be welcomed!